How do you handle looking for things?

[poolio]

Howdy again playgrounders, so like the title says, i've seen people recommend doing fetch quest style mini adventures and the like, but i'm not sure what that would involve.

Player: "So we're looking for the pieces of a lost sword to use against the vile arch duke who's actually a vampire lich polymorphed into a shadow dragon, right?"

DM: "Yes"

Player: "And we have no contacts that know where any of these pieces could be?"

DM: "No..."

Player: "So where do we start?"

DM: "...make a history check" *whole table rolls* "so highest number with mods is a 7?"

Players: "..."

DM: "..."

Players: "...so?"

DM: "...You recall hearing something about an ancient weapon capable of slaying any evil, in some old ruins two weeks outside of town"

Player: "which direction?"

DM: "East"


is that how it's supposed to go? has anyone had any luck running games like this? it just all feels so railroadie and forced, how do you handle these types of narrative hurdles?


I have a worlock player with a broken sword as his patron in a game and want's to restore it, but has no idea where to start cause he has no contacts regarding this weapon, the sword is sentient, so i guess it could give him some hints, but how do i have him 'look' for the pieces without just going "there's a piece in that old wizards tower" "i got to the tower" "there's a old forgotten golem there" We fight it" *Fight ensues* "you win, the piece is there" sounds kinda boring to me.

modern games with their 'Go here' arrows have ruined my ability to figure out these types of encounters.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to bestow their knowledge and experience with these types of scenarios.

[LordEntrails]

No, you've gated the adventure on a single decision or die roll. Never do that :)

If they need the info, then either just give it to them, or give them multiple ways to get it (i.e. "three clue rule").

Instead of instead of what you did, give them 3 rumors,
- "Some said a vampire was seen 10 years ago in the Caverns of Terror."
- "The archduke had a mansion 3 miles outside of town that has been abandoned since he died."
- "The village mid-wife said she found a dug up grave on the north side of the graveyard 2 days ago when she was gathering herbs."

Maybe here the players can make various rolls to gather more information, make logical inferences (i.e. 'the herbs the mid-wife said she was collecting don't grow in graveyard, only near springs', or something), or something like get a copy of the title of the manor that gives some clues or interesting history (the mansion title is always in one of three names going back 500 years).

Then, the Caverns give clues of some sort about the powers of the lich, perhaps information on the phylactery, but otherwise is a dead end.
The graveyard is a dead end for this plot, but might lead to intrigue later (like the mid-wife is actually an aspiring necromancer or demon worshipper).
The mansion is where the lich resides.

This means that the players are rewarded for their choices and they always have more than one choice. i.e. pursuing the mid-wife means another person is killed by the vampire lich (maybe some they know/like). Going to the cave reward them with information and the phylactery. Going straight to the mansion gets them to the BBEG, but maybe without knowledge or tools that they would have found in the cave.

Choices, and meaningful ones. And nothing important/critical to the plot is ever gates by a single failure (i.e. the treasure hoard behind a secret door that you have to find or you never get the treasure).

[LordEntrails]

As for the broken sword. I assume you have more players than just the one right? So the sword should be something that takes awhile to acquire the info on, and maybe info that can not always be acted upon.

First I would decide how many pieces of the sword. Say 4; hilt, jewel for the pommel, and two blade pieces. Assume he starts with the hilt.

You need a story as to how the sword was broken. Say it shattered when giving the killing blow to a golem. The tip piece is embedded in the golem, which has been restored by some wizard somewhere. The mid blade is now a dagger in the possession of a kobold. And the gem is the necklace of some wealthy person.

Of course, the player doesn't know all this.

During the campaign, the player can learn the story of how the blade was shattered. Then someday a bard tells a story in a tavern about this wizard he met along the road in town X that had a golem with him, and the funny thing is the golem had the tip of a sword in it's left eye. Now, maybe the party goes right to town X, or maybe not as they have better things to do. In town X they learn the name of the wizard, and that he is from the wizard's college in City Y. Maybe they send letters to the college asking for information on the wizard and learn he was thrown out because he was caught researching demon summoning. Then some point later on they learn of some kingdom that is over run or ruled by a demons.

But, none of that should be a straight line. It's not really the campaign is it? But sprinkle in these things as the party adventures. Tie these clues together.

Maybe the jewel can be bought from the noble who wears it. Or earned by doing her family a deed. Perhaps the blade is found by chance, or the kobold has become famous as a bandit who wields a glowing broken blade as a dagger.

"Don't prep plots" is another good term to Google.

[poolio]

Thanks for the advice, but what kind of clues or information would you put or have written? i'm not much of a writer myself unfortunately, and most of my good points for being a dm revolve around open worlds where anything can happen and improvising on the spot (and mostly pointless) interactions between players and npc's, so my games don't really revolve around a campaign but instead more about what the players want for their characters, like i had a bunch that just wanted to become a famous band, another that was a family circus that eventually ended up with them trying to find their collective father, they were mostly all half siblings, and that game ended when they found him, it was a similar situation i have now, where they're looking for someone/thing and i don't know how to get them them looking cause i don't actually have a set place for him on the spot and no idea what to do other then go "he's over there, start walking" lol

so again, thanks, i'll be sure to get googling.

[Vogie]

Thanks for the advice, but what kind of clues or information would you put or have written? i'm not much of a writer myself unfortunately, and most of my good points for being a dm revolve around open worlds where anything can happen and improvising on the spot (and mostly pointless) interactions between players and npc's, so my games don't really revolve around a campaign but instead more about what the players want for their characters, like i had a bunch that just wanted to become a famous band, another that was a family circus that eventually ended up with them trying to find their collective father, they were mostly all half siblings, and that game ended when they found him, it was a similar situation i have now, where they're looking for someone/thing and i don't know how to get them them looking cause i don't actually have a set place for him on the spot and no idea what to do other then go "he's over there, start walking" lol

so again, thanks, i'll be sure to get googling.

For things like that, it's best to litter the field with tidbits that could equally be red herrings or potential Chekov's Guns. One-sided correspondence, fragments of swords, prayerbooks, crappy manuscripts, rumors, songs, odd scrolls, ancient maps, soggy journals, exotic feathers, et cetera.

You can later adapt around the things that the party either discovers, or finds interesting. If you thought they were going to check out the ruins (where they would find fragments of sword), and they end up going to the Wizard's tower (where they would find nothing), have them instead find a map to the ruins.

You can also make things more interesting by having giving them more options - a failed history check on the road is one thing, but inside a library the party may Investigate books, persuade the librarian, or do a perception sweep of the restricted section.

If you find yourself running out of ideas, or constantly looking for interesting things like that to do, check out the r/d100 subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/), like these Interesting Forest Locations (https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/comments/8xrwzd/lets_build_interesting_forest_locations/) or search up things like 100 Written Clues (https://thetrove.net/Assets/World%20Building%20&%20Game%20Design/100%20things%20tables/Grinning%20Skull%20Design%20Studios%20-%20100%20Written%20Clues%20for%20all%20Fantasy%20R PGs.pdf). You can quickly roll up some clues that point towards... something... and have the party find them, or not.

I'm running a campaign in Waterdeep, so one of the things I did was grabbed the Randomizer cards from my Dominion sets (I use an app, so they were unused and extra), and I can just flip cards when the people went down a road I hadn't thought about. "Theres a... garden, some sort of estate house, a merchant, and a patrolling Sentry". You can do similar things with Magic Cards, or assigning values to cheap playing or flash cards.

[Kadzar]

The biggest problem I see is that you apparently called for a roll and had the same thing happen on a failure as would have happened on a success. So either you needed to not call for a roll (characters can just know things) or have some sort of consequence for failure. Some examples:

They have to travel to a far off location to find a sage or library with the information
They need to pay someone gold or favors for information
The old witch who lives in the nearby bog probably knows, but she charges strange payment for information
An enemy knows the location, and they need to speak with them to learn it
They find the information they need, but, in their search, a rival also gains the same information

But there definitely needs to be some sort of cost, and you should generally try to point them to some direction, even if it won't be as fruitful as they originally hoped.

Also, it helps to make information a valuable commodity. If knowing the location of the parts of the sword was just a matter of making a high enough history check, you'd figure someone else probably would have done it by now (barring the difficulty of fighting whatever guardians exist at the location). Some information is just lost to time, and not really available as public knowledge. Plus, it kind of sucks to make a entire quest hinge on whether or not someone made a single skill roll. It's probably better to use a skill roll to direct them to the most simply or straightforward source of information, with failure leading them to more arduous or circuitous sources.

[MrConsideration]

I have a worlock player with a broken sword as his patron in a game and want's to restore it, but has no idea where to start cause he has no contacts regarding this weapon, the sword is sentient, so i guess it could give him some hints, but how do i have him 'look' for the pieces without just going "there's a piece in that old wizards tower" "i got to the tower" "there's a old forgotten golem there" We fight it" *Fight ensues* "you win, the piece is there" sounds kinda boring to me.
.

Perhaps the Sword sends him visions of places ("a bandit camp in the shadow of a twin-peaked mountain") which he could either recognise or find an NPC who would be able to deduce the location. Perhaps the sword wishes him to prove himself worthy to wield it with some other kind of valorous deed which relates to the quests of other characters, like slaying a great warrior who happens to be in the employ of a campaign villain. Have the Sword's actions generate adventure for the party group. (I spoke a little about this in a blog post (http://thelastdaydawned.blogspot.com/2017/05/records-railroads-and-rewards.html).)

You want your History checks to add texture and some advantage when the situation would be a roadblock to your players:

10-15: You have heard the blade possesses the power to disrupt undead creatures and necromancy, and was shattered by a great champion of the God of Death. Undead creatures are likely to be guarding it.
15-20: The Champion of Undeath, Laphegor the Rotting, was obsessed with extravagant traps but possessed a sense of honour - all his traps are likely to have a means of 'honourable' escape.
21+ : Laphegor abandoned his evil cause when his wife rejected his hideous, rotting visage and abandoned the quest for eternal life. Eager to redeem himself, he gave a diary describing some of the defences to a penitent anchorite in a nearby priory.

[Keravath]

If YOU were looking for information on a legendary magical artifact, where would YOU go?

In this case, the characters haven't heard anything about the sword. However, in game the characters/players should have at least a minimal clue about what they COULD do to acquire information. The DM doesn't need to lay things out on a platter, the DM just needs to provide the information needed depending on whether the characters need to do something or not.

From the player perspective - what to do?

1) TALK to people. Who should you ask? Are there any sages or alchemists? Any learned NPCs? Are there any bars/taverns/gathering places where adventurers hang out? Would a barkeep or other adventurer NPC in such a place have any useful information?

2) LOOK for information. Is there a library? Is there a school/university/guild? Is there any place where records might be kept?

Perhaps the characters find out about a local sage who died a few years ago and whose works were entombed with him? This becomes a mini-adventure raiding the tomb to discover some useful information. Throw in a few undead and perhaps some traps the sage set up in his tomb? Alternatively, maybe the ghost of the sage is hanging around because he knows someone will eventually need the information he has collected, once he passes that along he can go to his final rest.

Unless the DM WANTS the entire passing along of information to be a simple die roll to save time for some reason then the information the players need MUST be placed by the DM in the environment and the players should be able to figure out some of the obvious mechanisms they can use in game to acquire the information they need.

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From a DM perspective.

1) If information is important to the plot then make it fun to obtain. "Roll a history check" is not generally fun and is not a good way to pass along plot important information. Have the PCs do some searching/role playing to find what they need.

2) Figure out a few NPCs or locations that could contain useful pieces of information and if the characters go there and do something appropriate then give it to them. Remember that unless there is time pressure, the characters can repeat skill checks pretty much indefinitely so a failed roll while searching a library for example just means it takes longer to get the information, not that the characters don't find it.

3) If you trap yourself by using the die roll to advance the plot mechanism and everyone fails then IMPROVISE. The entire idea of a dead sage/tomb/ghost took about 30 seconds to come up with (maybe not the best idea but might be quite fun to play out). So in a case like that, look at your notes, pretend you are reading something, and MAKE UP the surrounding world as you go along (add the knowledge of the sage available by talking to any barkeep or shopkeeper, add the graveyard with small mausoleums near the town/village church/temple, have a few passageways, a couple of traps, maybe a couple of level appropriate monsters and the sage's ghost who reacts negatively to tomb raiders until they tell him what they are looking for). Just make sure it is consistent with the rest of your world and WRITE down anything you added after the fact.


One key thing to keep in mind as a DM is that you can't prepare for every eventuality or every idea that your players come up with, so you go in with a plan, notes, as well as some general ideas and if the game goes off the planned script then improvise. :)

[RickAllison]

One tool I keep in my belt is from Chronicles of Darkness (and Monsterhearts). Rather than locking the goal with the check, failure introduces complications.

Instead of finding a scholar who is willing to give you the info if you bring back some other relics for him to use for his thesis, you instesd find an information broker who, unbeknownst to you, is going to sell the info to other interested parties. The party now has to contend with both the denizens of the dungeon, but another adventuring group might be waiting to ambush them while they are weakened. Or perhaps he sells it to a noble who tries to blackmail the warlock, threatening to expose him as a demon-worshipper (if that’s appropriate to the sword).

You can even have the severity of the complications dependent on how badly they failed the check.